Paper Or Plastic

While in line at supermarket today I thought about those bags, the ubiquitous grocery store bags. Do you have those plastic bags at your grocery store? You know, the "alternative" to the paper bags that stores used to use before the environmental people decided to save the trees and instead use billions of plastic bags that take even more billions of barrels of oil to produce. Given that the recycling rate for plastic bags is only 1%, am I supposed to tell them paper or plastic when they ask which I want for my groceries? The best approach would be to carry a permanent bag and use it whenever buying groceries. But who can remember to do that. Most of the time we shop for groceries on impulse and carrying a bag around all the time is impractical. I already tell them not to bag what I can carry and to bag as much in the ones they use.
Since using either plastic or paper is a waste of resources and a source of pollution maybe stores should stop giving those bags. Each year governments must spend for sweeping bags from streets, untangling them from recycling machinery, scooping them from storm drains so sewers don't back up, and, ultimately, dumping them into landfills.
A practical solution would be to charge a per-bag fee to any shopper who doesn't bring a bag or carry the items out without paper or plastic but wants paper or plastic bags from the store. I think some countries like already have such a fee, and bag use dropped in those tremendously. Another alternative to those grocery bags is to require supermarkets to use only biodegradable or compost able plastic bags made from corn or potato starch. Those alternative bags costs more than paper, but that cost decreases significantly with increased demand. I think the throw-away grocery store bag is a symbol of the throw-away world in which we live. You know.. nothing is permanent anymore- not material goods, celebrity, nor beliefs, values, ideals. We throw away so much because we have so much and value so little. It's a shame the worlds has become something of a paper and plastic one.
But thank God my world isn't like the what is in India. Yep...I have another crazy East Indian love story to relate to take your mind off paper and plastic for awhile. Police in eastern India have rescued a Muslim man who had been shackled in chains for a month for marrying his childhood lover against the wishes of his father and village clerics, police in West Bengal said the other day. Raghu Amin, 21, was locked in a dingy room by his father in a village in the state of West Bengal after he publicly announced his marriage to 18-year-old Sehnaaz Khatoon, who came from a poorer and lower class family. "He was chained throughout and even served food in this condition as punishment," said police officer Jay Biswas.
Police came to Raghu's rescue in Baduria village after his wife lodged a complaint. Raghu's father has been arrested on charges of wrongful confinement and police said they were looking for some village clerics who they suspected were also involved. In India, paper or plastic is not the issue. But crazy cultural habits are. Most marriages are still arranged by parents of the bride and groom who often look for compatibility in religion, caste and class. Couples breaking from this tradition are sometimes ostracized by their families and sometimes face violence.
Maybe Raghu should gather his wife, put their possessions in paper and plastic and get out of India.